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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23193745">Your yellow and your smile</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wifebeast__s/pseuds/wifebeast__s'>wifebeast__s</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Librarians (TV 2014)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Eyelid Kisses, F/M, Fleve, Fluff, Hand Kisses, Kisses, One Shot Collection, Tiny bit of Angst, lip kisses, prompt list</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:07:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,883</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23193745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wifebeast__s/pseuds/wifebeast__s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I like your yellow and your smile, and you remind me of something I don’t want to forget.”</p>
<p>Multiple one-shots of Flynn and Eve together, based on a kisses prompt list! One of them might be E...rating will change, as necessary.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Baird/Flynn Carsen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Anchor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have been sitting on this for a while, but given everything that’s happening in the world, I thought maybe someone out there could use some soft, fluffy, wonderful Fleve.</p>
<p>Chapter 1, Prompt 1: Palm Kiss</p>
<p>Recommended Listening: Anchor, Mendy Gledhill</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eve was alive. She was alive, and fate was restored, and the Library was here, and somehow they had won.<br/>
</p>
<p>And Eve was alive.<br/>
</p>
<p>There was still blood on his jacket sleeve, dried now and dark red and brown, even after she came back, whole and <i>alive</i>.<br/>
</p>
<p>The word kept bouncing around his brain making it itch (‘Come back alive’, she always says, every time, and he never says it back because she’s the guardian, so of course she’ll come back alive. Except this time when she didn’t, but now she is, or she did, so it’s ok). He itched. His hands itched, fingers flexing, wanting to reach out, touch and feel her pulse. It was, in a word, ridiculous.<br/>
</p>
<p>But then again…<br/>
</p><p>Blood sacrifice was required. Dulaque had said as much.<br/>
</p><p>And the sacrifice had to love the one doing the sacrifice. Dulaque had mentioned that offhandedly, too, wiping Lamia’s blood from his sword. And she had said it, that she loved him, and he had said that he knew, that it was required, and wasn’t that just…a terrible thing to say to someone you just stabbed? Awful enough to stab them, but to be so cruel on top of it was even worse. Flynn had caught Lamia before she fell, was holding her when she said it, as she was bleeding. Like Eve had been bleeding.<br/>
</p><p>Blood on his sleeve.<br/>
</p><p>The Library - that was what Eve loved, what she was offering herself for.<br/>
</p><p>He had just happened to be standing there. And the Library…that was it. Anything else might be too much. Too much hope. Too much pressure. Too much too soon. It was only…7 years? since Simone. 7 years, really?<br/>
</p><p>But he was overthinking. She made the sacrifice for the Library. Or better yet, all of them. Of course.<br/>
</p><p><i>With this blood, a passage opened to the library.</i> The story was told, and so it did. The blood on his fingers that had been pumping out of her chest - that was what opened the library. And was still on his sleeve.<br/>
</p><p>“You don’t believe in fate, huh?”<br/>
</p><p>He looked up at her teasing voice, surprisingly calm as anything, into light blue eyes that were somehow so familiar to him. Comforting. The same way the Library was familiar and comforting, and wasn’t that a thought? An…unwelcome? thought. No, not unwelcome. Just a thought, then.<br/>
</p><p>“Well, Guardian, here you stand.”<br/>
</p><p>Alive, his brain whispered to him again, giddy with the word.<br/>
</p><p>“Thanks to you, Librarian,” she smiled, tone still teasing and light, despite the stain still on his sleeve.<br/>
</p><p>It was true, but was it really? It was her blood that brought them to the Library, where he was able to save her life. He just shook his head, waved his arms around at the restored artifacts and books, as if his sudden, wild burst of motion could adequately describe what had actually happened, what he was thinking, feeling: her blood, the library, her sacrifice, her return. Alive.<br/>
</p><p>She sank down next to him on the step, and he turned to her, staring at her in wonder. Wonder. Wondering. Wondering just how it was that she had come to be, much less be <i>here</i>, with him, in this Library that bled out of her.<br/>
</p><p>Her hand was in his, and when did that happen? Soft and unstained in his, still stained. He turned hers over in his, studied it the way he would any other precious artifact in these hallowed halls.<br/>
</p><p>“Reading palms now?”<br/>
</p><p>He smiled, chuckled even, and without real purpose, he recited what he knew, “Palmistry, chiromancy, really, from the Greek cheiro for hand and manteia for divination, is found in many different cultures around the world. Believed to be started in earnest with the Hindu mage Valmiki - that part is true, actually, though, well, it was because of a…not the point - and reprised in 1839 with La Chirognomie,” he finished with a flutter of his hand, made difficult by the presence of her hand contained within.<br/>
</p><p>She was smiling at him, with that look in her eyes, and the only defense he had was to look down at her palm, brow furrowed in concentration.<br/>
</p><p>“Well, Eve Baird,” he meant to say with levity, but it came out a murmur, a whisper of a holy name within a holy place, and she leaned in closer, perhaps to better hear.<br/>
</p><p>He straightened her hand in his, allowed himself the thrill of tracing her fingers, as they extended, then pressed his index finger between her own and her thumb, tracing the line that was there across her palm, down, around to her deceptively delicate wrists, “You have a rather long life line.”<br/>
</p><p>He brought her hand up closer and pressed his lips against the line he had traced, the deep, strong ridge that represented the whole of her life, bold and wonderful as she was.<br/>
</p><p>She inhaled sharply, then whispered his name, and finally his mind was quiet.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Something just like this</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Sitting next to someone, leaning against them, and kissing their shoulder</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Recommended listening for this prompt: Something Just Like This - The Chainsmokers</p>
<p>Quoted/referenced:<br/>Sonnet 43 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning<br/>Sonnet 30 - William Shakespeare<br/>Sonnet 80 - William Shakespeare</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was something alluring about Eve’s shoulders; Flynn had always said so, or at least he thought it frequently to himself, sometimes while staring at them and sometimes while thinking about them when he was away.<br/>
</p>
<p>He knew that she thought - they all thought - that he didn’t think of them, the librarians or the Guardian, when he was gone. He didn’t really think of <i>them</i>, but he thought of her. A lot. All the time. Every moment away from her. He could picture her perfectly in his mind, just as he could see in exact detail every page of every book he’d ever read.<br/>
</p>
<p>And yet when he would see her after an absence, it was like seeing her for the first time all over again, new details coming to light, always something to learn.<br/>
</p>
<p>Nothing was so beautiful to him.<br/>
</p>
<p>And everything about her was.<br/>
</p>
<p>Even her shoulders. Their perfect curve, delicate yet strong in ways that he had never been and never would be.<br/>
</p>
<p>She was warm against his arm. Warm body and warm heart and warm spirit. Of course everyone loved Eve Baird. The librarians flocked to her and her light the same way they flocked to the Library. He was no exception.<br/>
</p>
<p>No exception and yet somehow the exception in that she shined that light brightest on him. On him, of all people. She, who was everything and beloved.<br/>
</p>
<p>Every inch of her was perfect. Her shoulders were perfect.<br/>
</p>
<p>Poets could write sonnets about her shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
<i>How do I love them? Let me count the ways.<br/>
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrances of her shoulders.<br/>
And o how I faint when of you I do write, knowing a better spirit doth use your name…<br/>
</i><br/>
Shakespeare had met Eve Baird. How many of his sonnets were about her, he wondered.<br/>
</p><p>He leaned down, pressed his lips against the bared curve of her shoulder, and he was rewarded with a warm smile.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Lionheart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Eyelid kiss, said to produce a unique sensation of an un-worldly nature, running from the base of the spine to the knees</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Recommended listening: King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The candles flickered, their light delicate yet eternal.</p>
<p>Eve inhaled deeply, staring at those that she felt closest to, the small but brilliantly red one that was Stone, the round, two-wicked one of Cassandra, and the unassuming but brightly lit Jones. The messy and beautiful mass of wax that was Flynn, burning on into infinity, she supposed, feeding itself again and again.</p>
<p>She spent more time in here than she had before the tethering, taking comfort in the lights that continued to shine and keeping vigil over those that had gone out.</p>
<p>“Thought I might find you here, Guardian,” Flynn’s voice drifted from the door, soft and questioning - he never wished to impose on her, and he never seemed convinced that he could never be a nuisance to her.</p>
<p>She flashed him a smile over her shoulder, and he took the signal to approach, sweeping his own thoughtful gaze over the candles in the room.</p>
<p>It never ceased to amaze her, just how insightful he was. She could see the calculations, the connections being made in that wonderful brain of his; she wondered, not for the first or last time, what went on in his mind. </p>
<p>“Now that we’re not able to go out as much, I just…I like to check is all.”</p>
<p>He nodded, likely already knowing her reason for being in this room, and he stopped at the large candelabra at the center of the room, a quiet and fond smile on his features. After a moment it sobered, and he turned to her, “Do you…have any regrets?”</p>
<p>Oh, this precious man.</p>
<p>“None, Flynn,” she assured him with a somber gaze, hoping to convey just how grateful she was to be there with him.</p>
<p>He inhaled sharply and nodded.</p>
<p>“You?”</p>
<p>He smirked and shook his head in a display of disbelief at her question before turning to her fully and taking her hands, “What was it I said?”</p>
<p>She snorted a sort of laugh, “Can you narrow that down at all?”</p>
<p>His playful eye roll didn’t escape her, even as he lowered is voice in that way he had and repeated exactly what she knew he was mentioning, “Kissing you is exactly how I’d like to spend eternity.”</p>
<p>She cleared her throat, feeling it swell with the surge of gratitude and love that answered his sentiment. He squeezed her hands when she closed her eyes, steadying herself with a breath.</p>
<p>She felt him shift but was still surprised when his lips grazed over first her right eyelid then her left.</p>
<p>It was a strange sensation, so gentle and heartfelt. Something fluttered in her, a shiver passing down her spine, and when she opened her eyes, he was gazing at her with that soft smile that she sometimes believed she’d dreamt about since she was a girl.</p>
<p>“They’re fine, Eve. You’re a brilliant guardian, and they are ready for anything because you prepared them for it.”</p>
<p>She nodded, his belief bolstering her own.</p>
<p>Yes, of course. They were brilliant, too.</p>
<p>And she was right where she was supposed to be.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. First star that I find</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt 4: A kiss on the temple</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Recommended listening: Satellite - Guster</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well I’m not…you know…you’re a soldier. And you’re…and I’m-”</p>
<p>“The Librarian.”</p>
<p>Flynn breathed out a chuckle and nodded, “Yes, I’m the Librarian. And you, Eve, I mean, you could have any…you know…you are…”</p>
<p>Eve smiled, felt her cheeks warm, as they always did when he did this. This…humble, fumbling, thing that he would do when it came to her. He came across as overly-confident, dare she say cocky? But somewhere deep inside he was still the young man who was a “student of learning,” who never quite fit in, who felt like he was stepping into shoes much too large for him.</p>
<p>And she thought he was wonderful.</p>
<p>Obviously smart, which had always been a quality she admired.</p>
<p>Brave. Braver than he had any right to be, really.</p>
<p>Hopeful and kind.</p>
<p>His head was in the clouds, but somehow he felt more solid, real, down-to-earth, than other people she’d known.</p>
<p>He was cute. <i>Handsome</i>. His features sharp and bright, eyes somehow depthless, as vast as his wealth of knowledge.</p>
<p>When his focus was on her, the world dropped away from them, and she thought she could get a glimpse, just for a moment, of all the knowledge contained in his mind, the things he had done, the places he’d been, the most magnificent magic the world had ever seen. And somehow, when he looked at her, she thought that just maybe she was all of those things.</p>
<p>”I am henge? I am key?”</p>
<p>He closed his eyes, smiled, and shook his head, “You are key.”</p>
<p>He was brilliant. So damn smart. Crazy smart. Could remember entire books, spout off random facts, do…anything. Everything.</p>
<p>She knew that others might look at them and wonder. She understood that she garnered the attention of other people. She knew that people looked at her, hand-in-hand with this man with the vest and jacket and bow tie, wondering what they were doing together, and she also knew that those people would never know this man, not really.</p>
<p>He was inconsiderate sometimes, forgot how to…person.</p>
<p>But his heart was always in the right place, and increasingly he had been leaving that heart, precious and beautiful, in her hands.</p>
<p>She smiled back at him, leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his temple.</p>
<p>He took a deep, calm breath, and nodded.</p>
<p>Thinking that was the end of it, she turned. She should have known better, really, she thought, as she was spun back into his space, tugged against him, and tilted back as he pressed his lips insistently against hers.</p>
<p>And really, how could he think that she would want anything other than this?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. It was you who picked the pieces up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt #5: Laying opposite directions of a couch, or with someone’s legs in their lap, kissing their knees or shin</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Recommended listening: Sway - The Perishers</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Flynn didn’t seek out comparisons, really, but it was inevitable that as he and Eve became closer, she would be cast in relief against his memories of the other women who had been in his life. </p>
<p>Nicole, his first guardian, tough and direct. She had struck him early on as a femme fatale, skilled in survival and combat in equal measure, rough around the edges. Impatient, his brain offered as well, time having dulled the ache of her loss as much as the veneer of that initial wave of awe that had struck him. But she had been exactly what he needed then, pushing him to new horizons, pulling him from himself.</p>
<p>Emily - brilliant and curious, just as she was driven. She had challenged him in wonderful ways, her mind even more beautiful than the rest of her. Of course nothing could have lasted between them, given how similar they were; they would have drifted apart in pursuit of their own passions. But he learned from her that his intellect did not need to be dulled to participate in life, that he didn’t need an exact carbon copy to be happy.</p>
<p>And Simone. Enchanting, alluring…kind. She had come to him at the right time, and truly he had loved her. Losing her had damaged him in real ways. But she had told him that he had a destiny, and she had been right. And she had shown him that love didn’t always have to be about…whatever it had been about for him before. Sometimes you just knew.</p>
<p>So now. Now, stretched out on the couch in Jenkins’s lab, looking across at Eve who was engrossed in the notes that Cassandra had dropped off after the latest adventure she and the others had gone out on. She was focused, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, teeth chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip.</p>
<p>He wondered sometimes if his previous heartbreaks had all been about finding and loving her. Learning from Nicole how to find the soft side of a warrior, from Emily how to share intellect with a partner, and how to allow himself to simply love someone for the sake of loving them from Simone. Because somehow, miraculously, Eve was all of those things.</p>
<p>As if sensing his thoughts, she shifted the leg that was closest to him, rubbing her calves together, perhaps in at attempt to scratch a phantom itch. From his position, stretched out opposite her, it was nothing at all to wrap his fingers around the muscles just at her knee, tilt his head and drop a gentle kiss to her shin, where it rested near his shoulder.</p>
<p>She looked up from her reading and smiled warmly at him, rocking her leg against him playfully.</p>
<p>He would do it all again in a heartbeat.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. I bet my life on you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Kissing joined hands</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A little different approach with this one. I don't know...I went back and forth a lot on how I wanted this to go, and I'm still not 100%...but I got other things.</p>
<p>Recommended listening: I Bet my Life -- Imagine Dragons</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There had always been a Librarian, and there had <i>almost</i> always been a Librarian and a Guardian; there had been at the beginning, and then sometimes there would be a Librarian going rogue without a Guardian. That usually ended badly, but it had worked for Flynn. Still he needed someone, even if he didn’t know it, and it was clear enough that when he had a Guardian again, he was…more. There didn’t seem to be a better way to describe it than that, and he had never been more than when Eve was Guardian.</p>
<p>Flynn was truly The Librarian. Teddy had been great. Darington had been good. But after Judson, he was <i>it</i>. The mythical hero in the flesh — fit just into place.</p>
<p>And Eve was the only Guardian who could replace Charlene, the only one that had breathed life into the heart of Library, not to mention the Librarian, since the first.</p>
<p>The two of them were destined to be the next ones to tether. There was never a doubt that they would emerge victorious, would vow to keep the Library safe.</p>
<p>It took a special bond between Librarian and Guardian to successfully tether. Tethering was forever, after all. And it was more than that. It was a demonstration of utter devotion to the Library, to what it stood for, to one another. Judson and Charlene had had what it took, and to be fair, they had set the standard.</p>
<p>Perhaps they would have like at some point in their long, shared history, to rest, but never had a pair emerged that could have adequately suffused the Library with what it needed from such a bond. </p>
<p>Of course no one needed to worry about Flynn and Eve. It was clear enough that forever would be just about right for them, if not a little too short. </p>
<p>The way Librarian looked at Guardian was the same way he looked at the books and the artifacts. Wonder, joy, and love in equal measure, as if each time he saw her, he might find something new.</p>
<p>Eve was less expressive, or differently expressive. She smiled at Flynn’s antics, mostly when he wasn’t looking. She did things for him, often without him knowing - heating up his tea after he let it get cold when deep in a book, taking him out on adventures when he got that twitchy sort of energy, showing him patience and kindness even when he struggled to be the person that she knew he could be.</p>
<p>Flynn laughed with Eve. Real laughs that made him light up from the inside out. </p>
<p>Eve was loose around Flynn, able to let her hair down, go just a little bit more with the flow.</p>
<p>They complemented each other, and ultimately that was what was necessary for a Librarian and Guardian to tether. Balance had always been at the center of what the Library was meant to do, and balance between Librarian and Guardian was necessary to fully link its energy to the reality of the world.</p>
<p>The Library had seen it all - the first time Flynn stepped through the doors and the first time Eve had, too. </p>
<p>It had watched Flynn argue with her being there, despite it sending the clearest sign it knew that she was the piece they needed. Saw him take a leap of faith and bring her back to life on the stairs. Remembered their life forces, frozen in stone, nestled in the locked room in the basement, there for so long, a favored secret among its many secrets. </p>
<p>It had seen the rehearsals for the ceremony — a requirement, it supposed, although mostly a formality. It had felt the fading of color, the press of the grey, colorless world that a fallen guardian had sought to impose, never losing faith that its Librarian and Guardian would return it to its glory.</p>
<p>And now it saw as Librarian and Guardian sat on the steps, sharing a rare private moment in the hours before said formality would be completed. Flynn held Eve’s hand, as he looked out at the shelves, no doubt thinking about the future forever ahead of them. He glanced at Eve and smiled that warm, quiet smile that he reserved for her, brought their hands up and kissed her knuckles.</p>
<p>She turned to him, head tilted and lips spread wide, and the Library’s belief was cemented. They were the ones to be sure.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. You know that I'd rather drown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt 7: Topless &amp; face down, on the shoulder blade</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Recommended listening: Oceans - Seafret</p>
<p>There is some implied sexual content in this chapter, and it makes some adjustments to canon.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite what Eve or the others might think, it was no easy task for him to leave them behind. Rather it was no easy task to leave Eve.</p>
<p>The monumental undertaking was made that much more difficult in moments like these, as he quietly buttoned his shirt, staring down at his Guardian’s bare back, where she was stretched out on the bed that somehow they had come to share. The sweat that he had spread across her skin just hours ago had long dried, but his fingertips tingled with the sensation still. </p>
<p>He reached out his hand, hovering centimeters above her, as he closed his eyes and recalled the curve of her shoulder blade, how it pressed against his palm when she inhaled sharply. </p>
<p>Still not touching her directly, he followed the curve of her spine, her hip, eyes following his fingers, seeing and yet not seeing in the moment. </p>
<p>He saw her sleeping, but he also saw her cast in flickering candlelight, legs wrapped around his waist, hair falling around them like a curtain, as she blessed him with a kiss. </p>
<p>He curled his fingers, pulling them back before he gave into the crushing weight of his want. Wanting her. Wanting to stay. Wanting to shed his responsibilities, just for a little while. Wanting to simply be Flynn and let her be Eve. </p>
<p>But. There was always a but. Evil was spreading throughout the world outside. He was the Librarian, and he had a duty to uphold. That had never been a problem for him before. It wasn’t really a problem now, but it felt like a weight hanging heavy around his neck in a way that it had never done before.</p>
<p>He could lie to himself and say that she was the weight. That it was her somehow silently putting the pressure against his shoulders, her demands that he take a moment to relax, take her on a vacation, causing his neck and back to tense. That she was dragging him down into something like false comfort.</p>
<p>But Eve wasn’t the problem. He knew that. Eve was the opposite of a problem; Eve was an answer…probably, no, definitely, <i>the</i> answer.</p>
<p>He inhaled slowly, willing his heart to match his breath. He had to <i>go</i>. He had to trust that she would be here when he returned, that she would be safe. That she would forgive him. Again.</p>
<p>Flynn stepped away from the bed and picked up the pen he had grabbed and began writing — <i>How lucky I am to have someone who makes saying goodbye so hard.<i></i></i></p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>It took him longer than usual to finish the letter, the whisper soft sounds of her breath, of her slightly shifting against the fabric, a constant pull on his awareness.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He stared at the letter for a moment, closed his eyes, as if doing so would allow him to swallow everything down. It was now or never.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>He returned to the bed, etching the image of her there into his memory with loving strokes before leaning over to kiss the exposed skin of her shoulder blade. </i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Eve let out a small sigh. He took another deep breath, further steeling his resolve. He slowly pulled the sheets further up to keep her warm, placed the letter on the table by the bed, then backed out of the room.</i>
  </i>
</p>
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